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Emily was lying on her bed, the pain inside louder than ever. All the hate was really getting to her. All the hate comments she saw online — starting from her past and ending with her singing abilities and sexuality — really got into her head. She wanted to scream. To cry loudly. To pull her hair.
But all she did was just lie on the bed with her arms over her face.
She couldn’t take it anymore, and a crazy idea appeared.
“Fuck, this is bad. This is so bad,” she whispered to herself while getting up and taking a stationery knife in her hands. She just wanted the pain to stop.
Sitting down on the floor, she brought the knife to her upper arm. She took a deep breath and cut herself. Then again. And again. And again.
The tears started rolling down her face. Not because it hurt, but because she felt like she deserved this. Every bit of it.
She watched as her warm blood dripped down her arm. She burst into tears.
“Why am I like this?” she thought to herself.
Now she was just sitting there, crying, with a bloody knife in her hands while blood kept streaming down her upper arm.
After a few minutes, she went to the bathroom to clean herself.
“Fuck, it’s gonna take a while to heal this shit,” she said to herself while looking at her arm in the mirror.
She sighed, not understanding why she had done that. It felt so good while doing it, like the pain she felt inside was finally being released. But now she was ashamed. She knew there were better ways of coping with her feelings, but they didn’t seem to help well enough so far.
Waking up the next morning, going to the kitchen to make breakfast, she remembered what she had done last night. Looking at the fresh cuts, she felt guilt eating her alive.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” the angel on one shoulder was saying.
“But it felt so good,” screamed the devil on the other.
While eating her breakfast, she received a text from Mike:
“Hey, wanna come over today?”
She smiled. It was like Mike knew she was feeling down.
“Yeah, I’d love to. I’ll be there in thirty,” she answered and put her phone down.
When dressing up, she put on a shirt, but the sleeves weren’t long enough to cover all the cuts — some of them could still be visible. Not too much, just one or two. So Emily decided to put a hoodie with long sleeves on top, just to be sure no one could see the pain she carried around inside.
Emily knocked on Mike’s door. He opened it.
“Hey there,” Mike smiled with his sweet smile and opened his arms for a hug.
Emily buried her head in his chest.
“Hi,” she said in a soft voice.
Then she distanced herself from the hug and patted Mike on the shoulder.
“Missed you, man.”
Mike just gave her a soft smile and invited her to his living room.
As they sat down on the couch, Mike asked,
“Why are you wearing the hoodie in this weather? Aren’t you hot?”
Emily tried not to give it away, even though her look probably already did.
“No, it’s okay,” she shook her head.
“Okay,” Mike nodded. He didn’t suspect anything, even though he still thought it was pretty weird Emily wore a hoodie in this hot weather.
It was getting on toward the evening. The whole day they were just chatting, playing Mario Kart, and eating pizza, which was a very fun leisure time.
At one point, Emily took off her hoodie, completely forgetting the cuts could be visible. Throwing the hoodie to the side, she turned to Mike and asked,
“So what? Wanna play another game?”
Mike turned to her.
“Yeah, sure.”
But then his gaze accidentally fell on Emily’s arm. His heart dropped. He knew what those types of cuts were. He had seen them before.
Emily noticed how Mike looked at her arm.
“Please don’t ask anything, please don’t ask anything,” raced through her mind.
But Mike knew he couldn’t not say a word about it. He didn’t want to lose another friend again.
“Hey, what’s this?” he pointed at her arm, trying to be as gentle and subtle as possible. He knew it was a sensitive topic, and he wanted Emily to know that it was a safe space and she could share anything that was on her mind.
Emily looked at her arm and said,
“What? Oh, this? I don’t know, just a scratch or something.” She tried to play it off, shrugged her shoulders.
“So are we gonna play another game or what?”
She tried to escape the conversation.
But Mike knew better. He knew he couldn’t just shift the conversation like this. He knew Emily needed help.
“Emily…” he started gently. “You can tell me, it’s okay.” He put his arm on her shoulder and looked at her.
“I’m okay, dude, seriously,” she shook her head.
“Emily, I know this isn’t just scratches. They don’t look like that. I know what self-harm cuts look like,” he said almost in a whisper, trying not to scare Emily off, trying not to push her to talk.
Suddenly Emily’s eyes started watering.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Mike said, noticing that.
“I just can’t take it anymore,” Emily whispered.
“What?” Mike furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.
“The hate. It’s everywhere,” she burst into tears.
“Hey, Em,” Mike tried to make her feel better. “I know things are hard right now. But a lot of people love you too. I mean, have you seen all of those fan accounts?” He smiled.“The hate voices are always the loud ones.”
Emily just looked at him, not saying a word, listening carefully.
“I don’t want to see another friend struggle like this,” Mike shook his head.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Emily was trying to wipe away her tears.
“Don’t apologise. I get it. But please don’t do it ever again. If you feel down, just text me or any other bandmate, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered. “Can you not tell them about this, please?”
Mike looked at her with understanding in his eyes and softly said, “Okay.” “I have a lot of notebooks. I can lend you some. To write stuff if things get tough. That’s what I do,” he said.
“Like… songs?” Emily asked.
“Songs, thoughts, doodles — whatever helps you feel better.” He smiled. “Think you can do that?”
“Yeah,” she murmured. “Thank you.”
“I’m always here for you, Em. We all are,” he said as he pulled her into his warm embrace.